


Ever After IV: A Moment's Superiority

by Teland



Series: Ever After [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Humor, Dystopia, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-11-13
Updated: 1998-11-13
Packaged: 2020-12-12 04:08:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: Walter does some thinking.





	Ever After IV: A Moment's Superiority

Walter took the turn onto the narrow, barely paved pissant   
of a road optimistically named "Highway 51" and swallowed a   
sigh. An hour into the two hour drive to the next "rest   
stop" and Alex hadn't said a word.

Not that this was particularly out of character -- the   
other man was rarely all that talkative, but Walter had the   
distinct impression they had sunk into newer, deeper waters   
and it...

It scared him.

This was life and death, and, whatever their intentions had   
been upon taking to the road, Walter had no intention of   
dying stupidly in some tangled emotional haze. 

He chanced a look at Alex, and swallowed another sigh. The  
man was blank-faced and placid in the passenger seat,   
sprawled in something that looked a whole lot like   
relaxation. He wasn't at all sure whether he wanted it to   
be simply another well-crafted impression or not.

He'd broken a promise to himself. Stay clear and clean of   
this man lest he... Lest he what? There was no denying the   
attraction; Alex had always been beautiful. And there was   
something about the endless series of layers and games that  
had always made him, if not smile, then at least   
acknowledge the humor Alex's presence in the world   
generated.

A trickster, and Walter wanted to know the older gods well   
enough to thank them for this gift. Deadly and smooth, by   
turns brilliant and awkwardly young.... Walter often   
thought of Alex's first incarnation, and had decided the   
other man would not have been able to play certain games   
had there not been some kernel of truth to build on.

And he made Walter ache. Every laugh, every snarl, every   
enemy taken down in a moment's casual savagery.... It was  
all a wonder to behold. Secure in his own feelings of   
superiority to the world at large, Walter doubted any man   
still living could appreciate Alex on as many levels as   
Walter had, and still did.

And yet, there was the Mulder question. Long dead but still   
hanging over them, a presence of sardonic wit and lean   
musculature. Voice unforgotten even as the scent faded   
into time.

He'd made the decision to refuse Alex's advances nearly   
instinctively, trusting in the urge as only, perhaps, a   
soldier would learn to do. There was always time later to   
justify such things. A flight of birds taking off suddenly,   
a hastily contained breakdown in yet another car left burnt   
and abandoned off some distant, anonymous roadside.

Walter had *wanted*, and the instinct to quash such things  
was hoary and powerful as any incantation from on high.   
Later, he had told himself of grief, and human healing, and   
played noble confessor to Alex's penitent in long hours of   
stilted talk and banked tears. As if he'd known of what he   
spoke.

A platitude here, an aphorism there... long stories that   
flowed as naturally from his lips as blood, and where the   
hell had they come from, anyway?

Had he ever really believed in what he told Alex, or was it   
all pious justification of his own immature desire to self-  
deny? Yes, he could admit such things were immature. There   
was, perhaps, no more clear sign of a flawed character than   
a boy struggling to hurt himself to prove his manhood.

And when that boy would never see fifty again...

Shameful, then. A mistake not to be repeated. And yet, and   
yet... what if he'd been doing the right thing for all the   
wrong reasons? So long as right was done, all was well, and   
Alex... 

Alex didn't love him, never had. Even before the truth   
about the other man had begun to trickle from the cracks,   
here and there... even then there were nights when he could   
smell Mulder on him. Sprayed territory, though the man   
himself would never have claimed such behavior. 

And when he couldn't smell Mulder, well... 

Did Alex truly need to shower before four p.m.?

Later, he'd been able to tell himself that it was all part   
of the twisty little bastard's games and orders. Seduce all   
you can, Lord knows you have the ass for it.

The mouth... That mouth. Some hot, hazy day, some further   
proof that Washington D.C. was no place fit for any but the  
rank beasts of the jungle and Alex had walked right into   
his office. Ignored his barks and growls for explanation   
and walked up to him in his comfy, official chair. Knelt   
and blown him.

No reason at all he could discern other than to further   
disorder his mind. And, for all he knew, for Alex that was   
probably better reason than any.

Hot mouth on his cock, and the breathy space of sordidness  
was silent mockery of the heat outside, shame to the   
non-functional air conditioning. *This* was fire, this was   
the gorgeous hell of a thousand woodcuts -- the stalag and   
stalac of teeth and the river of an impossible tongue and   
Alex had taken it all...

Tidy and efficient, a lie to the man, a truth to the   
illusion, and after, before he could regain some shreds of   
his hard-won dignity and command, he'd pulled the other man   
to him for a brutal kiss of something not quite definable.   
Tasted himself with triumph and joy and sent him back to   
his partner. 

Walter shook himself internally, struggled to retrace the   
lingering scent of his thoughts. Alex. Always and forever?

There had been a sort of communion, marriage to the brutal   
sex of little more than an hour ago. An understanding   
reached of mutual need and no more lies... But how do you   
tell the truth when it's nowhere near coherent in your   
mind? There was *nothing* here clean and neat, no lines of   
fire and march for a man to believe in. 

The freshly scrubbed lieutenants had been victims waiting   
to happen in his other war, and this was a lesson to hold   
to, and understand.

But he wanted no struggle with this man beyond the shift   
and flex of pared-down muscle in the sweet dark... A home   
as flowing and stately as any mansion on the hill. 

*Alex* was clean and neat, simple in his paths when taken   
to the core, and so he had wanted. But the two of them,   
here, were nothing of the sort.

For a moment, Walter entertained a fantasy of roads   
untaken, an Alex who had never managed to get through to   
Mulder. That need he understood, and even condoned from the   
safety of distance and death, but what *if*? What if Walter   
had not been so lost in paper battles that he could've   
walked through the urban night and nightmares until he'd   
found the man? Taken him home and made him his own?

Walter knew his face was as poorly designed as any child's   
first and lazy attempt at sculpture. And yet he was tall,   
and strong, and he knew Alex saw many of the same things in   
Walter that Walter had seen in him. 

Though he wondered if what Alex had seen in him had more to   
do with potential than reality... If so, was what he'd   
become what Alex had always wanted?

They could've had something. He knew it. He could *taste*   
it, gone but unforgotten salt on his tongue and the bright   
tang of a lust uncondoned. But he had, somewhere, lost his   
chance, and Mulder had stepped up and stepped in. 

Alex would never have let an opportunity go unexploited,   
but he could admit to himself that he'd lacked the faith in   
Mulder. Too rigidly black and white, too willing to wash   
his hands of those who had failed to live up to his vaunted   
moral standards.

And he was angry less for wounds to his own pride than for   
the fact that the man was still *there*--

"You're quiet tonight."

Walter grunted in reply, smiled internally at his own   
re-enaction of stereotype.

"You're not fucking brooding about the sex."

It wasn't a question, and Walter was grateful for the   
opportunity not to reply.

"Walter."

And the road was pitted and unkempt. Hail most probably.

"*Walter*."

"What?"

He turned to look at Alex, took in the curious blend of   
rage and incredulity. It made his eyes brightly,   
poisonously olive in the dashboard lights.

"Walter, this... this isn't us. We're just not fucking   
*built* for this.. this *mooning*."

"A place for everyone and everyone in his place?"

"So long as mine involves a gun and regular fucks, it works   
for me."

"If that were the case you never would've changed sides."

The incredulity was gone, replaced with the sort of   
blinding anger that was more likely to kill the man himself   
than the object of his wrath. Quickly stifled with an   
almost audible push. "If you're going to be jealous of a...   
of a *dead man* then we might as well just ram this fucking   
boat into the nearest tree."

"Alex, I'm never going to believe--"

"You're too fucking old for this, Skinner. This isn't the   
prom and Susie didn't stand me up for the captain of the   
football team. There are no second choices when there was   
never a choice at all."

"Al--"

"No, Walter. *No*. You can't believe? Well I can't believe   
we're fucking dealing with this. This is *us*. The best   
thing I can do for myself is move the fuck on. This is the   
life we lead? Well, fine. Just keep my ammo stocked."

"And you're going to tell me that it's over. He's dead, I'm   
not, let's screw."

"You always were a poet." Alex slammed his head back to the   
seat and sucked in a breath. "The healthy, correct thing   
for me to do is grieve in the best way I can. I'm not an   
idiot, I loved a fucking psychiatrist, and the stupid   
bastard loved me back -- No, shut up. Let me talk."

Walter subsided, curled and uncurled his fingers around the   
wheel.

"The only thing grief gets you is tears and some form of   
sappy closure. 

"Well, guess what? Closure is *useless* in this world.   
There is no grave for me to cry over. Mulder hated flowers.   
So, what's left? We've been damned lucky, old man, and you   
know just as well as I do that it won't last.

"We're never going to be the poster children for 'Healthy   
Queer Relationships of the New Millennium.' We're never   
going to have the house, the dog, the Martha Stewart seal   
of approval on the decor..."

Walter felt himself smiling with something like surprise.   
"You're drifting."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"

A snort and Walter leaned back in some half-forgotten   
sensory memory of ease. "My apologies. Please do continue."

"*Anyway*... Walter, you're probably the closest thing I've   
had to a friend since Peskow disappeared into God knows   
where... Bastard. I was *just* about to kill him and off he   
goes..."

"Hard to believe."

"Oh, so *now* you want to talk? Too fucking bad. Look, it's   
just us now. Until we get our much-delayed blaze of glory.   
Let's..."

"Make the most of the opportunity we've been given and   
screw like bunnies in between fits of mass murder?"

Slow smile in the comfortable gloom. "I think you're   
catching on."

"I try."

And the silence was heavy and warm, and Walter found   
himself looking forward to the inevitable awkwardness of   
trying to cuddle with the other man. 

Miles and miles of lonely highway and Walter had the   
niggling suspicion it was a song he'd hated. He could   
almost hear it in the blur of trees and mile markers   
outside his window, some meaningful whine about sleep and   
love by a man who'd never gone without either. But it was   
starting to feel something like all right.

Though that in itself was reason for suspicion and he let   
himself laugh. Alex didn't bother to ask why.

"Walter?"

"Yeah."

"There's something else."

"Mmph. Always more."

"Always... I don't know what I'm doing. I'm making this up   
as I go along..."

"Can't be new to you."

"No, but... I can't promise... I can't promise you that   
I'll always be this... this settled."

Walter reached over and grabbed his shoulder, not letting   
himself hesitate at reaching higher, brushing the smooth,   
soft skin of the other man's throat. 

"I know, Alex. Just don't lose it in the middle of a   
mission or..."

Flash of humor he thought he could feel under his palm,   
though he couldn't say precisely why. 

"Or what?"

"No sex for a week."

A snicker and Walter squeezed, briefly considered just   
pulling off anywhere for the sake of bedding down as   
quickly as humanly possible. 

"You'd never make it."

"All right, nothing but blow jobs for a week."

"A lot of blow jobs?"

"No more than four a day. For each of us."

"You're a hard man, Walt."

He eyed the other man as gravely and somberly as possible.

"Yes, but fair."

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to kormantic for beta and title!


End file.
